First Date
You laughed at clowns
shambling by.
We cheered the parading
elephants
marching to drums and
calliope.
Trapeze artists, twirling
their capes,
suggested on earth their
aerial grace.
A donkey passed pulling the
rope
that dragged behind him a
dozen clowns
I bought us burgers and
lemonade.
You ate my pickle. I ate your chips.
Vendors came selling balloons
and pictures of the watching
crowd.
I bought you a monkey on a
stick.
“Thank you,” you said. “I love a parade,”
and kissed me lightly on my
cheek.
This is part of "Lines from a Gum Tree Grove," a book of 56 quatorzains forming a poetic exercise analogous to the sonnet sequences of various Elizabethan and Victorian poets. These quatorzains, 14-line poems, are in iambic tetrameter, rhyming a b a c b c d e f d e g f g.
ReplyDelete